DRUGS

TO YOUR HEALTH. British newspaper and magazine readers may be startled:
A new advertising campaign notes that the U.K.'s doctors can prescribe
heroin as a painkiller but can't prescribe "a safe naturally occurring
herb for the pain of MS," multiple sclerosis. The four ads, created
gratis by London advertising executives for the Alliance for Cannabis
Therapeutics (ACT), are the first ever in Britain encouraging the
legalization of marijuana for medical use.

The publications that plan to run the ads, including the Daily
Telegraph, Britain's bestselling broadsheet, are likewise doing it as a
freebie. That may not always happen, so George Soros, the billionaire
who helped bankroll successful medical marijuana initiatives in
California and Arizona, has been approached for a $500,000 donation. But
unlike the American campaigns, this one is not tied to a referendum; the
ads seek to influence policy makers.

Doctors used to prescribe marijuana for medical use until it was
criminalized in 1971. A British Medical Association survey of its
members found 74 percent are in favor of prescription pot. A working
committee of the BMA is studying the issue and will report in July. The
government, which annually spends around $856 million on antidrug ads,
warns that, should medicinal cannabis be legalized, users wouldn't be
allowed to cultivate their own herb gardens. Pharmaceutical companies
would have to develop products and submit them for clinical trials and
licensingjust like other prescription drugs.Thomas K. Grose